NO nation that is fairly independent accepts this or does this on its own... Ok so Hoover tried this, but in the modern world this is Neoliberalism of the type the IMF likes. Somebody forced the hand of the administration and I am willing to bet the Chinese. There have been rumblings of making the US no longer the reserve currency, and if I am right, expect currency controls and an official devaluation of the dollar. (The latter is not a bad idea for complex reasons but that is besides the point)

I have the sneaky that you too can mark the calendar, on this day as the end of the American Empire...

Is this a good thing? Empire wise that is... time will tell. For the moment, having lived through this, realize that the IRS will become down right bad when it comes to getting taxes. Your standard of living, best case, is about to stagnate even more, reality case, it is about to drop. So if you have any debt, do all you can to get rid of it.

Oh and whatever recovery was there... and there was... kiss it good bye. No, not being hysterical. This is what austerity plans do. Oh and wall street will have a good run too.

Oh and this is a perfect recipe for the anger under the surface to explode in ways that you should understand why there are no cuts to security services. If any of you believe things are bad now... just wait.

And that is my downer of a post based on actual experience with this crap...

I don't know how it will play out though, other empires that turned to purely financial conglomerates like the Dutch, English and Spanish were not as large, geographically and population wise. A downfall could fracture the US.

Sadly, he did promise to get the budget deficit under control while at the same time steering us from this recession. Only time will tell if the right choices were made. The freeze doesn't start until 2011 and he's already increased spending in some areas we might find favorable, so this isn't likely to be as draconian as you're making it sound. In fact, I'd bet my life that you're way off on your prediction (which is made here weekly - BTW).

16. I did read where the Chinese just floated some type of Bond Issue for 3%...

I think this is above what the U.S. is paying? I do know this will make hot money flow to where the best return is.. and it aint here.

Yes.. I think the Chinese are firing a shot over the bow.. and the politicians are too dumb to see it.. too dumb or probably just too greedy is more like it.

The very wealthy are getting richer by the day. They are building their underground bunkers and survival palaces as we speak. George Bush is off to his million acre ranch in Paraguay and god only knows what Obama is going to do.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Bush 41 adminstration decided to go for Sole Superpower world imperialism. This was furthered by the Clinton adminstration with their Balkan adventures and central Asian initiatives. And Bush 43 continued the policy under the guise of the war on terror.

This caused the natural reaction in most other countries to do everything they could safely do to defeat the US. In most cases, this is through economic competition and a passive agressive foreign policy. In the case of Islamic extremists, it is through low-intensity asymmetrical conflict.

We've got maybe a couple more decades before we bleed out through a thousand cuts.

37. Yep. We should have withdrawn all our forces and gone isolationist instead

Edited on Tue Jan-26-10 12:26 AM by anonymous171

We should have kept our seat on the UNSC but abstained from voting. We should have become the world's nightwatchman, only intervening when things got seriously out of whack or threatened to destroy global civilization or the American nation.

When there's a decision to decommission a couple of aircraft carriers as part of an austerity plan, THAT would mean the end of America as a latter-day imperial power. And I suspect that's not going to happen just yet. Things will limp along for another decade, or two, or a half a century. Britain was near broke at the end of WWI, but it wasn't until 1956 and the Suez Crisis that it became clear that Britain could no longer maintain its position as a dominant global power.

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